In 1997, a comprehensive academic study ranked Portuguese as one of the 10 most influential languages in the world. Being the most widely spoken language in South America and all of the Southern Hemisphere, it is also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa, and an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, the Organization of American States, the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations. It is usually listed as the sixth-most spoken language, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers and the second most spoken Romance language in the world, surpassed only by Spanish. With approximately 250 million native speakers and 24 million L2 (second language) speakers, Portuguese has approximately 274 million total speakers. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology in its lexicon. As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as " Lusophone" ( lusófono). It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. Portuguese ( português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
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